MMA fighter Charles Rowan faked his death

There’s a place in the world for people like Charles Rowan, and it’s not heaven where so many people believed he’d gone to last month.

Rowan is an amateur MMA fighter with a 1-3 career record. He was scheduled to fight last month in Traverse City, Mich., but his girlfriend called the fight promoters to inform them that Rowan had died in a car wreck on his way to the fight.

It turned out that she was just lying.

Promoter Scott DiPonio told The Associated Press that he and his girlfriend were saddened to hear about the death and that they traveled to be with Rowan’s family to pay their respects. The AP says DiPonio and his girlfriend were met with kids and grandparents crying when they visited the family.

DiPonio and his girlfriend gave the family $150 on the spot, and they organized a fundraiser two weeks ago and gave Rowan’s friend the $1,350 they generated.

The fight promoters were under the impression that Rowan had died in the wreck until they learned that he was a suspect in the holdup of a gun shop last week.

Looking back, promoter Christo Piliafas said there were some warning signs about Rowan’s death, but he believed it.

“I had people saying this was a little bit fishy,” he told the AP. “There was no obit. There was no funeral service. But in that situation, you want to be sensitive to the family,” he said. “I didn’t know exactly how to handle it. I didn’t want to go off and say, ‘We’re not doing this. Something’s not right’ and then have the incident having really happened.”

Unsurprisingly, Rowan has a criminal background that includes failing to register as a sex offender, and the attempted delivery and manufacture of marijuana. You really should read the entire story because it is wild.